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Weekly news and features for business continuity professionals

An Afghan provincial official says that the death toll from a massive avalanche in a mountainous valley near the capital Kabul rose to 198 as bulldozers and other machinery began clearing roads and rescue teams were able to reach remote villages that have been cut off for almost a week.

For the past decade, Malaysia has run an elaborate campaign to market itself abroad as an ideal Asian destination, touting a multiethnic culture, lush rainforests and pristine beaches. Despite the effort to internationalize, its tourism industry still relies heavily on tightly-packed neighboring Singapore and in a renewed push the government had designated 2014 as "Visit Malaysia Year."

The beach at Southern California's "Surf City" has been turned white by a dumping of hail from a fast-moving storm. The National Weather Service says at least an inch of icy pellets coated the sand at Huntington Beach after the system roared ashore Monday morning.

The United Nations is urging donors, organizations and countries fighting Ebola in West Africa not to give in to complacency as the death toll from the virus climbs toward 10,000. U.N. experts said the spread of the disease in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone has dropped to almost 10 percent of what it was in September.

There is still time to register for the 2015 Continuity Insights Management Conference at our early bird price of $1,295. Those who sign up for CIMC 2015 by Saturday, Feb. 28, will be eligible for the discounted rate. For more information about signing up for the conference, which will take place April 20-22 at Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz., visit www.cimanagementconference.com/attendee-registration.

With so many threats out there, it can be easy to focus on the big, catastrophic event that everyone hears about on the news. The small stuff gets pushed aside and in some cases, completely forgotten about. Taking care of these issues is critical for BC pros.

Arbor Continuity, provider of holistic business continuity solutions and consulting, has announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with Black Swan Solutions, a provider of services that help organizations prepare for and respond to critical situations from data breaches to mass casualty events

Nadav Davidai of Control Risks and Emily Lord of RX Response will present "Including Your Supply Chain Partners in Large-Scale Exercise Simulations." Their presentation will focus on working with multiple partners to organize exercise that align with the objectives of everyone involved.

Avalanches caused by a heavy winter snow killed at least 124 people in northeastern Afghanistan, an emergency official said, as rescuers clawed through debris with their hands to save those buried beneath. The heavy snowstorms, which began early Tuesday, hampered rescue efforts.

States of emergency were declared and schools were closed ahead of wintry weather mix that hit much of the South on Wednesday. Heavy rain, snow, and temperatures 20 to 30 degrees below zero were forecast for several states. The wintry mix of precipitation was expected from northern Texas eastward across the Gulf states and into the Carolinas, according to the National Weather Service.

Nearly a decade ago, the U.S. secretary of transportation stood at the site of a horrendous commuter train crash near downtown Los Angeles and called for the adoption of a new train car design that testing showed could blunt the tremendous force of a head-on collision.

A Quebec City biotech company has been awarded a contract to make a ZMapp-like product to fight Ebola. The U.S. government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority issued a contract to make monoclonal Ebola antibodies to Medicago.

It's an ominous refrain, repeated endlessly in the same automated monotone: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are delayed because of train traffic ahead of us." What commuters don't realize is that those delays are tied to a political fight playing out over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's five-year capital budget plan, which will fund critical improvements and repairs to the city's sprawling transit system.

The World Health Organization is urging Europe to step up measles vaccination efforts as countries report thousands of cases of the disease. WHO's regional office said cases in Europe and Central Asia fell by half from 2013 to 2014 but its goal of eliminating measles there this year is threatened.

Netherlands-based Gemalto, a maker of SIM cards used in mobile phones and credit cards, said an internal investigation "gives us reasonable grounds to believe" an operation by the U.S. National Security Agency and its British counterpart "probably happened."